Frou Frou Gypsy in Combat Boots

ok, i found a crock pot cook book on clearance at my local book store and i bought it....i love my crock pot! I tried my first recipe from it the other night and it was a big hit! EASY BEEF STEW 2 lbs beef stew meat, cut into 1 in cubes 1 can (4oz) mushrooms {I used one package of fresh mushrooms chopped} 1 envelope dry onion soup mix 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup 1/2 cup red or white wine {I used white} Hot cooked egg noodles. guess what? toss it all in, except the noodles, let it cook on low 8-12 hours...and voila! dinner is ready! I did add a little sour cream and a bit of a corn starch slurry at the end to thicken it a bit and make it more like beef stroganoff, which is what it looked like to me anyway..not beef stew! DH loved it and the kids said they liked it. but didn't eat a ton of it. There was enough left to freeze for leftovers on another day!

OK, i have to confess, I got this recipe from the crock pot blog that i have mentioned in earlier posts. But i changed it a little. It was the easiest thing EVER and all four of us loved it!!! OK, buy a whole chicken. skin it. you can do this, trust me! :) think of all the calories and fat you are eliminating :) slice two onions and peel one whole head of garlic. Rub the chick with seasoning...I used a Greek seasoning blend that I buy at the grocery...comes in a yellow container, can't remember what it is called. plop the bird into your crock pot and put the lemon slices and whole cloves of garlic in and around it. cook on low 6-8 hours. I prepped mine the evening before and put it in the fridge until the next morning. The chicken was moist and tender and literally fell apart in the cooker. It came out in pieces and was very yummy!!! hopefully soon i will have some updates for you and pictures. blog slacker that i have been.

the recipe for this can be found here . first, let me say that mine, looked very little like her picture of it. I suspect that i overcooked mine i suppose. While the concept was good, and easy, ours had a bitter taste. I even bought pulp free OJ just like she recommended. K seemed to think there was too much orange rind in it...til i told him there was none! ha! DD ate it up...which is odd to say the least. the rest of us did eat it, though the addition of some soy sauce to kill the bitterness(from overcooking the OJ???) did help. Not terrible, just not yummy like i had expected. Might try it again sometime and tweak it a bit! hmmm, well that was the 2nd day of slow cooking. ****also I would like to direct your attention to the "blogs i love" in the side bar....a few new additions....Mrs. Medlin, be sure you check out that first one....you'll love it....you know him!!!***

Day one into my slow cooker test. You can find the recipe Here . I will say it was easy to make. I started it Sunday evening. I browned the ground beef and chopped the veggies. I went ahead and cooked it for a few hours Sunday night and then put it in the fridge over night. Monday morning i popped it out of the fridge to warm up a bit and put it back in the cooker...and voila! dinner was ready later that afternoon with only a little work on my part. (you add the milk and cheese toward the end) The only problem I had was that my potatoes seemed to take longer to cook, but that may be due to me splitting the cooking time. Hub and i loved it, the kids....well, I think they don't like soup in general. It was oh so cheesy, and because i cooked it so long the onions and bell pepper cooked into nothingness so they couldn't complain about "veggies". DD says she doesn't like potatoes...whatever. DS said it was good, but he didn't eat much of it. *shrug* My kids are we...

I am a blog-a-holic. Seriously. I use to check the blogs i loved multiple times a day and get so frustrated when they hadn't been updated. WHAT were these people doing all day??? Well, I had to take a blog break. No 12-step program required thankyouverymuch. I started out with stamping blogs, and then moved into sewing blogs, and general crafts. Now my blog list is enormous. I don't hit them as often as i should to keep up. I am always finding new blog treasures out there; one blog always leads to another. The point being, i miss my blogging and i miss my blog reading. Now that the kids are in school, perhaps i can make a little blog time for myself. that being said, here is the newest blog i have found that i am loving: A Year of Slow Cooking I haven't tried any of the recipes yet, but i am about to! Maybe a week in the slow cooker will get me movin' again. I have gotten where fixing dinner is very low on my list of "have to" or "love to" do things...